Panthers vow to shut down ‘Negro Head’ cookie baker

[Pryderi]

Source: The Villager

Panthers vow to shut down ‘Negro Head’ cookie baker

By Lincoln Anderson

Could the cookie be crumbling for Lafayette French Pastry bakery owner Ted Kefalnios?

After concocting a bizarre batch of “Drunken Negro Face” cookies allegedly “in honor” of President Barack Obama, Kefalnios has been receiving death threats, and now a group of militant black activists is vowing to “shut him down” for good.

Last Saturday afternoon, about 20 members of the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense rallied long and loud in the freezing cold outside the 80-year-old Greenwich Ave. pastry shop, which was closed for the day.

“Ray-cist Lah-fay-ette!” they chanted as they circled round and round inside a protest pen police had set up.

Read more: http://www.thevillager.com/villager_301/panthersvowtoshut.html

---

Good! I hope that racist bastard gets shut down!

[sandyj999]

1. Unfortunately you can't pass legislation or laws over ignorance. n/t

[Lost4words]

5. Its called quality public education, something that has been missing in the good ole USA

for some time now.

[OregonBlue]

2. Woo Hoo. He thought he was so clever.

[Lost4words]

3. Go Panthers! nt

[Lasher]

11. The New Black Panther Party is a hate group.

I don't like what the bakery is doing but maybe you shouldn't be cheering the Panthers on.

[Lost4words]

15. I thought it was about the football team!

:headbang:

[Lasher]

16. Hee hee, I'll drink to that!

Best Superbowl game I've ever seen except for one.

:toast:

[Lost4words]

19. Yes it was! thanks for the insite on the BPs as well my friend.

:hi: :toast:

[Lasher]

37. Very deft, the way you turned that around.

You made a friend where others would not have. I'll bet you're an excellent people person. I shall try to learn from your fine example. :thumbsup:

Lasher

[Lost4words]

53. I feel the same, turst me on a bad day I would have come out swinging

you were correct to set me straight on the current disposition of the BPs and I apprecieate it.
:pals:

[Mudoria]

26. Jake would throw an interception and ruin all their plans

[No Elephants]

18. In this instance, they did nothing but demonstrate peacefully against a lying

racist. That is what is being cheered on. When we get a thread about their hateful activities, we'll deal with that.

[Lasher]

21. I heard Stormfront had a bake sale for the benefit of impaired kids.

I think the Klan does that kind of thing too.

[John Q. Citizen]

23. You got links or just like making stuff up? Because I'd be interested in knowing

[Lasher]

24. I made that up. They might do such a thing, might not. It doesn't matter.

I was trying to make a point.

[John Q. Citizen]

28. whty are you under the impression that the New Panthers are a hate group?

Got links?

And if you don't what is your point?

[Lasher]

30. Because the Anti-Defamation league says so.

The Southern Policy Law Center agrees.

Link to Wiki article

Map of active hate groups

[John Q. Citizen]

41. Thanks for the links. That SPLC map is cool.

[Lasher]

42. I was hoping you might appreciate the map. It was illuminating to me.

Pals? :)

[roguevalley]

45. I like the concept of consequences but too bad it is them that are

delivering. may this guy lose business up the wazoo for his stupidity. I saw those cookies. the worst thing ever.

[Lasher]

46. I didn't look at the cookies.

Comes a point when I just don't want to soil my mind any further. Not a judgment against you or anyone else. I think you'll know just what I mean.

[roguevalley]

49. I do. they were horrible and you are lucky. anyone buying them has

no discernable soul. They were a link on an earlier thread. :(

[Lasher]

51. We make a great team.

I myself am unclean after having researched hate groups today.

I need a shower.

[roguevalley]

52. yikes. you are braver than me. :)

[No Elephants]

32. Again, when there is a thread about either of those things, we'll deal with those things.

[Lasher]

33. Who's this 'we' you're talking about?

Maybe you forgot to put on your moderator icon this morning. I don't think hate groups should be promoted at DU. But that's just my personal opinion.

[Zhade]

47. Sure - impaired WHITE kids.

NT!

[Lasher]

57. And if the NBPPFSD helps impaired black kids only, does that make them more noble than the Klan?

Both are hate groups.

[martymar64]

54. Prove that they are a hate group.

Do you know any of them? Cite some of their literature or provide a link to some article that directly quotes them engaging in hate speech.
Until then, you're just pulling this out of your ass.

[Lasher]

56. OK

I don't know any of them and don't want to.

Here is a link to a reply from upthread, in which I offered support for my assertion that they are a hate group:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3724380&mesg_id=3724632

With eager anticipation I shall anticipate your unconditional surrender, after which I shall dictate my terms. But you really don't want me to furnish direct quotes of them engaging in hate speech, do you? If that's what you actually want, let me know and I will defile myself and the rest of DU with their vile hatred. Trust me, I really didn't pull any of this out of my you.

[martymar64]

60. I read the Wiki article and I'll concede your point.

From their quotes, they're definitely not the old BPs. The old BPs were an honorable organization engaged in many humanitarian activities before they were decimated by COINTELPRO and outright murder by our government.

However, I wouldn't use the ADL as an objective source. Their site supported the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. They have become just another propaganda arm of the Israeli govt. They have zero credibility in my book. I'll stick with the SPLC, at least they're objective.

Since I conceded your point, I expect your apology for your calling me an ass. If you are an honorable person, then you'll send that to me post-haste.

[Lasher]

61. OK I apologize for calling you an ass.

Now for my terms of your unconditional surrender:

Let's be buds. :)

Thanks fer da fun. This is a discussion that needed to be had and I am grateful for your participation.

Lasher

[martymar64]

62. Apology accepted

Buds offer accepted too.

As for that racist baker, someone should unleash a few thousand roaches into his shop and then call the Health Dept and have him shut down.

[Lasher]

63. Let's you and me just go kick his ass.

There are times when the most direct approach is so much more fulfilling.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

4. Protest pens. How disgusting.

[ReadTomPaine]

73. That phrase really struck me as well. I guess 'Free Speech Zone' sounds too appealing...

so they had to come up with a phrase that will turn more potential protesters away and make them feel degraded and soiled for exercising their civil rights in the process. 'Protest Pen' has plenty of negative connotations to plant into the public mind.

Livestock like pigs are kept in pens. Convicts are sent to the pen. And now citizens of the United States can join them both. Or just shut up and behave themselves. Nice.

[Pryderi]

6. Looks like the baker apologized last week saying it was "art" here

is that article:
http://www.bet.com/News/Decision08/beheard_news_DrunkenNegroBakerApologizes.htm?wbc_purpose=Basic&WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished&Referrer={0471DDF0-D0D8-48A8-9E30-ADD40CBE0269}

“It was an innocent design I created,” he told a FOX News reporter. “It is nothing more than a piece of art.”

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

7. Not really an apology.

More like a self-righteous explanation.

[No Elephants]

22. That is a lie from a racist coward, not an apology. Did you see those ugly cookies? Did you read

the article linked in the thread header? Some excerpts


"After concocting a bizarre batch of “Drunken Negro Face” cookies allegedly “in honor” of President Barack Obama, Kefalnios has been receiving death threats, and now a group of militant black activists is vowing to “shut him down” for good."

<snip>



"Meanwhile, Kefalnios, 45, in a telephone interview on Friday, had informed The Villager of the upcoming protest and said he planned not to be there that day.

"On Sunday, a sign made with a circular white piece of cardboard — as might be used under a cake or pie — was taped up on the store’s front door, stating: “Sorry, closed today due to Asian Lunar New Year celebrations. Peace to All.”


“When did he become Asian?” a passing woman blurted out."

Kefalnios — whose family is from the Greek island of Zakynthos — said he was still sore that a female customer had contacted TV news reporter Arnold Diaz about what the baker variously dubbed his “Negro Head” and “Negro Face” cookies. That woman and another woman patron told Diaz in the now-infamous “Shame on You” segment that Kefalnios had told them that Obama, like Abraham Lincoln, “will get his.”


“That was just something I heard on the radio and I was being repetitive,” Kefalnios said. “I explained that to Diaz. … These women thought I was going to take out the president. That’s so ridiculous.”



<snip>


"Kefalnios said he was considering suing the first woman for “slander,” but that family members are advising him against it."

Yes, because you have no case, you hugh moran.


"The baker said he’s been deluged with phone calls — in one case, more than 50 in one day — from as far away as California and Florida.


“I get both sides,” he said. “I get people who praise me and call me genius."



<snip>

Asked if he didn’t realize beforehand that making this sort of cookie in Greenwich Village would cause an uproar, Kefalnios said, “Obviously, it’s a more liberal area, I gotta take my lumps. … It was a happy cookie for a happy day,” he maintained, also calling it “art.”



"Kefalnios even went as far as to say that the cookies — with their distorted features and blotchy, cherry-red eyes — were inspired by the African masks at the neighboring Bengally African-crafts store.


Yet, Kefalnios said when the crafts store’s owner, in one of the Fox TV news segments, “was put on the spot he said the word ‘racist.’ I think that was a bit premature,” Kefalnios said."





Normally cheerful on the phone, Kefalnios noticeably sounded a bit sad last week when asked how his business has been doing since the cookie outrage exploded. As local parents are telling their schoolchildren not to go to the store, it’s taking a bite out of his business, he acknowledged.

<snip>


One neighborhood resident who declined to give his name said, “He’s not very smart. He thinks he’s funny. He’ll make a green St. Patrick’s Day cookie and say, ‘Have a cookie with your beer!’ But you can’t joke with everyone.

{In other words, he's a typical stereotyping bigoted jackass.]

BTW:

Neighborhood: Manhattan/West Village
26 Greenwich Ave Frnt
New York, NY 10011

[phone]

[Donnachaidh]

25. that's the same argument used years ago

When Sambo pictures were used in advertising. It's RACIST *art* douchebag. And he deserves to be picketed.

[tomg]

40. Well, since he told FOX news,

it must be the truth. :sarcasm:

[Cha]

43. Sounds like an idiot and of course

he'd be on faux.

[Love Bug]

8. They protested in front of the closed bakery?

I get why they're pissed but why didn't they protest during operating hours? And what in the hell is a "protest pen"? Geeze-louise, what a sick left-over from the * administration...

[No Elephants]

17. They set the protest for a Saturday, during the day, very much

during business hours for a French bakery in Greenwich Village. Knowing that the protest would take place, he did not open that day, claiming to be taking off for Chinese New Year.

[Stephanie]

27. He closed the shop BECAUSE of the protest

He's usually open on a Saturday. I went to have a chat with him two Saturdays ago and he was full of bizarre excuses and feeling very sorry for himself. He said that he was sorry for what he did, but then explained that the black woman who lives upstairs told him she thought there was nothing wrong with it, which I find hard to believe. He mostly felt like he was entrapped by Fox News, He claimed Fox retracted it in their follow-up, but I watched it and it wasn't true. Bottom line, the guy is as dumb as a box of rocks. I know Brad Hoylman and I'm happy to see he publicly called for a boycott of the place. My report from my visit is in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=4901951

[lonestarnot]

9. I would have thought that the doorstep there would have been puked so full by now that noone could

get in the door. :shrug:

[Mist]

10. Pssst! Slip Ted's bakery some tainted peanuts--that'll shut the place down. nt

[cobalt1999]

12. Jeez, with all the inequalities out there and jobs going offshore.

Protesting a baker is their top priority.

[Pryderi]

13. I'm disappointed that no pasty-white ppl like me were there protesting...

[Ian David]

14. Cheering for The Panthers is like cheering for Fred Phelps when he protests The Catholic "Church"

They may be right about something this time but it's still not really making anything better.

[No Elephants]

31. Really? The racist agreed to take sensitivity training online. I doubt that he will because

it's clear from that article alone that he lies a lot, but he did agree. And a lying racist's business is getting boycotted. I think those are two good results from peaceful demonstration. Having him get away with this would have been horrendous and that is what may have happened without the demonstration.

[Ian David]

36. I'd rather it was someone other than the Panthers that did the protest. n/t

[The Stranger]

20. I'll bet Glen Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilley grin silently upon Kefalnios.

They have eroded the public's repugnance of racism over a period of years.

[Fire1]

29. OUTSTANDING!! Shut him down!!

[WriteDown]

34. Just hold on a second....

Is that how the baker described his cookies or is that how they were labeled by the accuser?

[BattyDem]

38. The baker called the cookies "Drunken Negro Heads"

“I called them Drunken Negro Heads. What’s the problem with that?” asked Ted Kefalinos, the baker responsible for the cookies.

This guy has been all over the news in the NYC area. He's a real prize. :eyes:

He claims he put them out on Inauguration Day to "honor" Obama, because apparently, there's no greater honor than having your entire race described as "drunken". :eyes:

According to a customer, he said the cookies were “in honor of our new president. He’s following in the same path of Abraham Lincoln; he will get his.” (That story has been repeated on the local news many times. There is no audio or video of the man saying it, but there's also no video of him denying it to reporters ... so you'll have to decide for yourself if you believe that part of it or not.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/26/drunken-negros-cookies-ne_n_161073.html


Video here:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/23/drunken-negro-head-cookies


edited: typo :blush:

[WriteDown]

39. Greek bakers and diner owners....

They are definitely their own breed.

[Wilber_Stool]

35. Just how is this

different than what the left has done with the image of bush the last eight years? I seem to remember some pretty unflattering pictures of bush and other republicans over the years.

[Gregorian]

44. Bush can change.

We never denigrated him over something out of his control.

Although I admit it's a thin line. Especially in Bush's case.


I get the feeling the Civil War was never over. Much of the country probably has a level of humor/hate that is as low as this baker's.


Edit- OK, you are correct. We did make caricatures over Chimpy's chimplike face. But I think it's different in that his face was more of an expression of what is inside of him. Not something he can't change. I mean, Helen Thomas is no beauty queen, but we love her. She's beautiful.

I don't know. But I do appreciate being forced to think it over.

[Zhade]

48. Uh, because we're not racists, first off.

NT!

[Wilber_Stool]

58. It would be better

if we had an example of the cookie or a description of its features. All we have is drunken negro head. But portraying Obama as drunk is not inherently racist.

[Solon]

66. Here's a picture for you...

[Wilber_Stool]

69. It's isn't flattering

but racist? I don't think it crosses the line out of political caricature. Your going to need thicker skin if you want to play in the politics game.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

50. Can you point out to any "cracker peckerwood" cookies, pastries, artwork, etc

put out by "the left" in the last 8 years? It's a silly comparison. And even if there were. What the hell does that have to do with this guy's racist little "joke"?

[Wilber_Stool]

59. Can I point to any artwork?

Jesus fucking Christ man. You can't swing a dead cat online and not see the most humiliating photo shops of bush. Give me a break. Just look around here. The name SwampRat comes to mind. Check him out.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

67. Jesus fucking Christ man how many of those were racist?

You didn't answer the question. Like I said even if you could find some racist ones. "Look mommy they started it" is not a good excuse for anyone. Get a fuckin' grip. You're comparing apples to oranges. In all seriousness though I guess I can't understand why this is hard to get.

[Wilber_Stool]

70. That is an interesting question.

How do you portray white folks visually so that it could be interpenetrated to be racist? I'll have to get back to you on this one.

I'm back. Are you implying that a cookie made in the image of a black person is inherently racist if a white person makes it?

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

71. Ok now I'm sure just just joking around. That has to be it.

Drunken "Negro" Face, did you read that in the article????

"Are you implying that a cookie made in the image of a black person is inherently racist if a white person makes it?"

OK either you're joking or you have some serious reading comprehension issues (and I don't say this to be mean). Other people have replied to you explaining to you why we think the name itself is racist not to mention why your comparison to bush is ridiculous. If you choose to keep playing dumb, hey more power to you.

[No Elephants]

68. Based on their race or based on their policies and lack of smarts? Big

difference there.

[GinaMaria]

72. * was a public (can't say he was elected) official

any art work about him was about him specifically and expressed a view or opinion of his ideals, policies etc. it's protected speech. This is expected and required in a democracy. Statements about * weren't about all white people or all males. It was about a specific person to reflect his specific actions or inactions.

The works were to express a political opinion about a political figure, not to express hatred, mistrust, fear or whatever toward an entire race. There's a difference between lampooning a public official based on his chosen ideology and disparaging an entire race or ethnic group of people.

[Dorian Gray]

55. Me too

I couldn't believe it when I first heard that this happened in NEW YORK CITY! I guess it goes to show you that racism is alive and well everywhere.

[corruptmewithpower]

64. Sure got his bakery on the map

Is this guy a racist loon, or is he crazy like a fox?

[struggle4progress]

65. A bunch of anti-semitic jerks protest a racist jerk: ain't American politics grand?

[toopers]

74. Where can I see a picture of this cracker . . .

I mean cookie, or both?

[Pryderi]

75. Click here:

http://gawker.com/5137787/bakery-celebrates-obama-with-drunken-negro-head-cookies?skyline=true&s=x